Kerala Education Grid Quality Instructional Processes Over Content for Effective Technology Enhanced

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Kerala Education GridQuality Instructional
Processes Over Content for Effective Technology
Enhanced Learning

• K.R. Srivathsan
• director_at_iiitmk.ac.in
• June 30, 2005

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Why this lecture?

• David Merrill Instruction is not Information.
• Efforts such as NPTEL, OCW/MIT, Education Grid,
  industries, others make content in different
  subjects increasingly available.
• Challenge is to align this EXPLICIT information
  with Instructional processes that help impart
  quality scholarship.
• Instruction is the set of processes engaged in by
  the teacher/instruction team and learners that
  result in achieving the objectives of the
  learning exercise.
• Activities of Learning must be focused and keep
  the Instructional Objectives in view.
• ?What should be the basis to design and develop
  such quality Instructional Processes?

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Parameters of Quality Education

• Quality of Learning Imparted not mere rote
  learning.
• Make learners think like professionals Face real
  world problems, understand and abstract the
  issue, analyze and synthesize a solution.
• Learning is a highly personal experience for each
  learner.
• Needs sense of purpose, direction, motivation,
  capacity for observation.
• It is Man Making Education, as Swami
  Vivekananda says.
• Instruction is about COMMUNICATING that which is
  not easily put in words or pictures - tacit
  aspect of scholarship.
• Learning is about building the capacity to see
  the abstraction, understanding patterns, to
  arrive at informed decisions, to take appropriate
  action.

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Objectives in Education

• To make our graduates EMPLOYABLE.
• To be PRODUCTIVE ON THE JOB and in LIFE.
• To observe REAL WORLD PROBLEMS, abstract the
  issues and apply what they have learnt and their
  innate sense to solve them.
• ? Three dimensions of
• Employable Graduates.
• ?A Quality Institute imparts effectively all
  three dimensions in a balanced way.

Quality Instruction needs teamwork and effective
management
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Learning and Formal Education

• Formal Education provides for a structured
  LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.
• Learning is more efficient as a Group Activity.
• Attempt to manage a mix of complex processes
• Learners, instructors and learning resources are
  dynamically involved in structured ways of
  directed and informal interaction and effort.
• Quality Education is not a mechanical process.
• Universities, institutions of higher education
  have to nurture a LEARNING AMBIENCE.
• What is this LEARNING ENVIRONMENT ?

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ON NPTEL

• Indias problem in quality higher education
  gt1000 professional colleges in Engineering Acute
  and severe shortage of quality/experienced
  teachers.
• Average student is brighter than average teacher.
• Industry complains that the books exams marks
  system does not produce employable graduates.
• National Programme of Technology Enhanced
  Learning NPTEL unique initiative of IITs/IISc
  to produce quality content for Engineering
  colleges.
• With funding by MHRD, gt 300 Faculty from
  IITs/IISc almost ready with content in 120
  Courses in Video and another 112 in Web-based
  form for use in the colleges.

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On Kerala Education Grid

• Only Education Network Project in India that
  addresses Quality in Higher Education through
  enabling approach.
• Establish a NETWORK OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
• Set up RESOURCE CENTRES RC in premier
  institutions.
• Develop and maintain PEDAGOGICALLY SOUND REFEREED
  COURSEWARE in different subjects.
• Deploy the courseware over subject specific
  COURSE KNOWLEDGE AND COLLABORATION SPACE across
  colleges over the network of Servers.
• Conducting series of short-courses and exposure
  seminars for college teachers on effective
  teaching using TEL.
• ? Visit www.edugrid.ac.in ? No. 1 hit in Google
  under Education Grid as search word!

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Education Grid and Community of Practioners in
each subject across Colleges CKCS
College Students Teachers
Instruction Mentoring, Refereed content
development
Course Knowledge and Collaboration Space
Course related World, Industry, etc.
Content Inputs, Course specific Dig. Library,
Links, etc.
Learning and Instructional Excellence Management
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Malcolm Baldridge Parameters for Good
Educational Institutions

• Visionary Leadership
• Learning-centred Education
• Organizational and personal learning
• Valuing faculty, staff and partners
• Agility
• Focus on the future
• Managing for innovation
• Management by fact
• Public responsibility and citizenship
• Focus on results and creating value
• Systems perspective

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Institutions as Learning Organizations

• What is a Learning Organization ?
• NASAs Columbia Shuttle disaster report, NASA
  has not demonstrated the capacity of a learning
  organization.
• Two aspects of Learning Organizations
• Building best practices.
• Nurturing INNOVATIONS DRIVING LEARNING
  ENVIRONMENT IDLE.
• Educational Institutions must continually nurture
  both Best practices and IDLE.
• What is this IDLE ?

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Learning as Tacit-Explicit Interplay

• At the end of a learning effort, a Learner
  should be able to say I understand ? Add to
  his/her Tacit capabilities.

Peoples Competencies, Communications, Feelings,
Intuitions, Social interactions Peoples Real
World
Codified Knowledge and Processes accessible over
the net, paper Global networked Information and
computational base
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Embedding Tacit Explicit Interplay

• Nonakas four components of IDLE
• Quality Learning takes place only when the
  Learning Ambience nurtures the above SECI
  Environment.
• How does one build a Technology Enhanced Learning
  and Teaching TELT environment that nurtures
  SECI?

Tacit
Explicit
Socialize
Externalize
Tacit
Combinational Thinking
Internalize
Explicit
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Example of Instruction Common Approach

• Example Teaching about Microphone
• The Bookish Way
• State different transduction principles of
  converting sound vibrations to electrical signals
  Carbon microphone Vibrating coil in a magnetic
  field Capacitor sensor Piezoelectric, Electret
  microphone
• Teach the Physics principles Solved
  problems Homework
• ? Let us take the IDLE way of instruction on
  Microphone!

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IDLE approach to Instruction

• Example Teaching about Microphone
• Set the Real World Stage What is a Microphone?
  What an ideal microphone should really do?
• Add a little spice History of microphone
  Edisons carbon resistance microphone and the
  phonogram HMV! Do you know the Lata
  Mangeshkar Microphone!?
• On properties of sound and hearing
• properties of a desirable Microphone
• Show real world examples of different
• microphones, makers, prices.
• ? State the Instructional Objectives

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Emphasize Instructional Objectives and Maintain
Focus

• Every module of Instruction must have clearly
  stated Instructional Objectives (IO)
• IOs must use active verbs Ex. By the end of
  this module, you will be able to compute acoustic
  impedance and its impact on the audio response
  and acoustics, and such sentences.
• Learning experiences and evaluation should align
  with the IOs.
• IOs guide and focus the class and all activities
  of instruction and learning activities.
• For instructional process itself use suitable
  pedagogic template like Gagnes 9 Steps of
  instruction and IDLE related activities.

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What are IDLE activities?

• Take each of Nonakas Four components
• Explicit to Tacit INTERNALISE
• To understand what is presented in books,
  printed, in the class, demos, case studies,
  multimedia, and solving exercises ? Usually done
  well in good institutions.
• 2. Tacit to Tacit SOCIALISE, Understand
  nature of Tacit Knowledge.
• Ex. Doctor diagnosing disease on examining a
  patient An Electrical Engineer instinctively
  knows the capacity of a Transformer when he
  sees one. The capacity to Guesstimate, on
  seeing the symptoms zoom to the core issue that
  is the cause these are TACIT. All experts live
  by Tacit Knowledge.

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More on IDLE Activities

• Tacit to Tacit (T2T, Contd.) Imparted through
  Apprenticeship and focused socializing group
  learning activities. With some background, we
  convert our understanding into Tacit capability
  through Socializing.
• Examples of such Activities Group Discussions
  Moderated Course Discussion Board. Teacher
  interaction hours.
• Give weights to learning activities.
• When understanding becomes tacit, retention of
  knowledge is much higher.
• Helps learner think like a professional.

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Externalizing Activities

• Tacit-to-Explicit (T2E) Learning Activities
• All good institutions ask every student to do at
  least one term paper and presentation in each
  course.
• T2E is to externalise, i.e., the capacity to
  express, or, communicate what you have understood
  in different ways.
• Bibliographic surveys, paper review and summary,
  presentation design and delivery essential to
  enhance ones confidence level and capacity to
  understand.
• Tutorial hours should be spent on demos, case
  studies and T2E activities.

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The Combinational Capacity

• Explicit-to-Explicit Or, Combinational
• The capacity to relate what is taught in the
  subject with similar scenarios or instances in
  other subjects or situations.
• Usually the domain of experts and experienced
  teachers.
• Best captured in web-content and highlighted in
  the class.
• Analogies, Bisociation, humor situational
  illustrations that enhance retention and get the
  big picture.

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How to build IDLE over Content?

• Phase-I Ensure Content is structured to suit
  effective pedagogy.
• Examples NPTEL IIT Bombay Template IIT Kgp.
  experience, Content Quality Metric of Education
  Grid.
• Typical design Divide Course syllabus into
  Learning Modules Ensure each module has well
  rounded content in the different learning
  activity areas.
• Phase-II Provide a template for instructional
  guidelines following Gagnes, Blooms taxonomy,
  etc.
• Over time develop META-CONTENT that drives the
  IDLE and associated processes.
• Orient and train teachers/colleges to manage IDLE
  supported by Course Portals.

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? Relate each learning activity to its relevance
and place in the above pyramid.
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Address the four Quality Dimensions for promoting
IDLE
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A Framework for Content Design
David Merrills Problem Based Learning
Model Useful to structure Content into pedagogic
components
2. Activation of Cognitive Processes
5. Integration into Knowledge Domain
1. Real-world Problem Based Introduction
3. Demonstration
4. Application
? Education Grid has a Content Quality Metric
CQM for guiding Content design
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Education Grid Setting the stage to practice IDLE
Advanced Web-Tech based Education Servers
Resource Institute
College 1
College n
RD

Digital Library and Resources
Experts, Mentors
Content Development and Collaboration Space
Learning Management Space one for each course
Course Administration

• Each subject to have one such Grid Environment
  to serve all colleges and organizations
  interested in the subject.

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ACADO Education Servers incubated at IIITM-K

• Education Server and its Functions
• Resulted in launch of TeN the first software
  products company from an academic institute.
• Visit www.transversalnet.com,

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A KNOWLEDGE INTERACTION INTERFACE (KII) FOR EACH
STUDENT
Document
Clustering
Knowledge
Knowledge
Management
Maps
Push
Technology
Digital
Self Study / Discovery
Library
Personal
Dash Board
E-Mail
Shared
K- repository
Group Study / Collaboration
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Introduce TELT as Facilitation Layer in formal
higher education
A Layered View of University System and their
Management ?Important State level initiatives for
ensuring University Systems absorb the Education
Grid as an integral part.
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Resource Centre 3 Scientific Portals
College 2
College 1
Communication Gateway Resource Centre
College 3
National Broadband EduSat Services Network
Resource Centre 2 Computational Servers
Programs Coordination Centre
College n
College 4
Resource Centre 1 E-Learning
Our Vision Enable, Educate and Empower Every
Citizen and Community Through Knowledge
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Summary

• Effective Instruction using content should have
  associated METACONTENT that facilitates
  management of the IDLE.
• IDLE provides the framework for designing
  learning activities.
• IDLE components have to be dictated by the
  Instructional Objectives in each module.
• IDLE in each subject has to be developed by a
  collaboration of institutions needs Course
  Knowledge Collaboration Space set over the
  Education Grid.
• Establish Portal and associated subject grid for
  each course that act as the reference for all
  colleges. Metacontent will personalize the open
  content available from NPTEL and such others for
  each college.
• ?Work towards establishing the Virtual Learning
  Campus.

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Some observations

• Christopher Galvin Motorola no longer wants
  Engineers with a 4 year degree, but wants those
  with a forty year degree programme
• Peter Drucker Knowledge has become the key
  economic resource and the dominant - and perhaps
  even the only source of competitive advantage."
• Henry Kissinger, The role of technology should
  be to bridge the gulf between the availability of
  information and the ability to use it.
• There is much we can do to improve countrys
  education. The work is not that large if premier
  institutions, eminent academicians, industry
  jointly execute NPTEL and set it over VISTA.
• Predict? Teaching and HR Management using TELT
  will become a major IT Industry in the near
  future?

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The only irreplaceable capital an organization
possesses is the knowledge and the ability of its
people. The productivity of that capital depends
on how effectively people share their competence
with those who can use it. - Andrew Carnegie
in 19th Century!
19th Century
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T OGETHER E VERYONE A CHIEVES M ORE
Thank You